In So Many Words
by La Maddalena
Summary: He's young and stupid and he asks too many questions. And you can only answer in so many words. / Org. XIII genfic, Roxas centric. Namine as a side dish. No particular pairings.
1. Midnight

**Standard disclaimers apply.  
**

**A/N: **This particular collection was actually supposed to be around thirteen hundredworders all squashed together into a long oneshot, but then the Xemnas one kind of fleshed itself out and became thrice as long, so. -.-;; Oh well. I love Organization XIII, and I've been wanting to do some genfic about them for a while, so no harm done. At the very least I'll be able to get rid of all the strange ideas floating around in my brain that are holding up the fluffles I need for _Trouble Me_.

Time to bounce Roxas off his co-workers. Gahahaha.

* * *

**In So Many Words  
i. Midnight**

Backlit by the not-quite moon, the Superior casts a long shadow—opaque, like tar, and nearly hard around the edges. It spills across the floor from the soles of his boots, half-twisting away… but it's sewn on so tight it can do no such thing.

Roxas watches it. If he watches long enough, he sees the lines that trace the borders of the half-picture, sketching a catechism he's sure he would know by heart if he had one. Echoes of the Superior's voice in his memory—_Do not cross. Remember your place._

"Xemnas, a question."

Roxas steps over the line. Ankle-deep in the Superior's shadow, he watches the shades of black pool around his own shoes with quiet eyes. He shouldn't be asking questions (strike one), shouldn't be addressing the Superior by name (strike two), for this is not catechism. This has never been catechism. Catechism says that what he_ should _be is obedient and silent and—inevitably, now that there can be no going back—afraid, but he doesn't think he's nearly wise enough for that.

The shadow shifts as the Superior inclines his head; the boy standing at arms' length does the same, looks at him square (strike three).

Three strikes. One tiny shard of courage more, to ask.

"What are you trying to find?" He does not say 'we.' It would be too impolite, too presumptuous—and he knows he's been far too much of both already, in the asking.

Silence follows. Roxas' question is backlit silver and cold by the not-quite-moon.

Xemnas answers questions with more questions. His words cast a long shadow…

"What do you think?"

…and yet there is no anger in his eyes. Only traces of curiosity that, strangely enough, mirror Roxas' own. Only the thinnest threads of amusement—and one can twist those, so they look a little bit like sadness.


	2. Potshot

**A/N: **Random trivia bit that might or might not be of use, c/o the dictionary:

Potshot (n.) - a casual or aimless shot.

Oh, and these drabbles aren't at all contiguous unless otherwise noted. Just so you know. XD

* * *

** ii. Potshot**

They sit together, legs tucked under them on the metal of the roof of the tower of the Castle that Never Was. The city falls away beneath, a mass of hulking dark silhouettes peppered with neon stars.

"Xigbar?"

This high up, the wind is cruel. It steals the word from Roxas' mouth before he even hears it come out in his voice. Lucky that his companion has good ears, otherwise…

"'Sup?"

The gunner doesn't look up as he responds, doesn't stop staring right down the barrel of one of his pistols. It looks like a pretty dangerous thing to do, like it's a pretty dangerous thing to be sitting so close to the edge of the roof, so far above the ground—but Xigbar seems to live on the edge of everything.

"Do you ever remember?"

The other pistol sits in Roxas' lap, with the scrap of black rag he ought to be cleaning it with hanging loosely in his fingers. He's been staring at the same spot on the handle for a good few minutes now, hands idle, brow knitted in thought.

"Remember what?"

Roxas doesn't answer, not for a good few minutes. The frown lines deepen across the boy's forehead, and he stares down at his free hand, watching it clench, unclench, clench, unclench. Trying to find words is harder than it seems, but he'd rather pitch himself off the edge right this minute than admit to Xigbar—even if he could do worse than Xigbar, really—that even he doesn't quite know what he's trying to say.

"…Anything, really. Anything from when you were…"

Another long, unnecessary, awkward pause. The meaning drops away from the words and nearly falls down, down, down like the city beneath—then it would have been lost—but lucky that Xigbar has good eyes, too. He reads it so fast it never gets the chance to disappear.

"From when I was human, you mean? Ah—from when I was whole?"

A cough. Roxas' fingers finally move, lifting the rag, rubbing away the spot on the handle until it shines.

"…Is that what you call it?"

Xigbar watches him, with a critical eye and a little noise in his throat that sounds like, _You ask too many goddamn questions—_but might just be _You're not cleaning that thing right._

"What else would you call it? And, well. Sometimes I remember, I guess. What we were working for. What wanting felt like. Or I think I do, I don't really know anymore. To tell you the truth, Rox… I can't say I care."

A resigned sigh and the gun passes between them, but the topic of remembering is not so easily dismissed.

"I don't. Remember anything, I mean."

There is another rueful half-cough from the sniper at this, one that might mean to say _Lucky boy. It's not like you're missing much. _Except the wind sweeps by again, snatches up the words—and Roxas' eyes aren't nearly as fast. The next few that reach his ears through the gusts are a sure dismissal, this time.

"Yo, kiddo. You missed a spot—and don't give me that look. You're gonna get early wrinkles."


	3. Windburn

**A/N: **Damn. I still have a hard time imagining Xaldin doing anything but fighting. And, well, cooking. But that's crack.

Poor Roxy.

And I should probably cite my sources so: the Xaldin-maxims are derived from _The Virtues of War_ by Steven Pressfield, which is actually a historical novel about Alexander the Great. o-O Go figure.

* * *

**iii. Windburn**

Two keys, clenched tight in fists that have already begun to sweat in their gloves.

Six lances—the smallest of these is still longer than Roxas from top to toe, hair included—dancing in the spaces between fingers, cycling too quickly to follow.

And then there's the wind, solid as a wall and still circling fast enough to burn. The wind alone shouldn't even make it a contest, really. Except one of them is bent on making it a contest, at the very least, and sometimes that is enough to change everything.

_Damn. How does he _do_it?_

Roxas breathes, deep from the hollow of his chest, and rushes the wall. The air slams into him from all sides, leaving white-hot fingerprints on unprotected face and forehead—but the momentum carries him through.

"There's a good boy. Keep your eyes straight at me."

Never mind that storms rage around him; Xaldin still speaks in breezes. Effortless. Infuriating.

Metal on metal rings once—two keys, three lances. The other three rest at Xaldin's back, idle and lazy—_Are you even worth coming out for?_

The message fills Roxas' mouth like copper blood. He's tempted to spit, swallows it down—ducks and parries as the returning hit drives him backward.

"You must not assume the defensive—it's the attacking arm that commands the action."

Oblivion and Oathkeeper spin in his hands, metal on metal rings twice, and for a moment Roxas is burning up so completely that he sees nothing at all. Nothing but two keys, six lances, the outlines of the wind, the curl of his superior's mouth as it makes a grin.

"Getting angry, my good boy?" The man is all maxims and lectures and taunts and the howling of gales—and still sickeningly calm as he stands in their eye. "You ought to be the object, not the subject. If you can move an opponent to anger, you ensnare their good sense.

"As I have done with you."

Two lances come up, dip down to drive their points between keyblade handles, lift—Oblivion and Oathkeeper drop to the ground. Metal and concrete do not ring together; everything is over, just like that.

"You see?"

Roxas does see. He hates it passionately, but he does see. And never mind that storms rage around him—he swears that one day he'll learn to speak in breezes.

Even if he does have to take two steps for every one of Xaldin's.


	4. Expositions

**A/N: **Vexen is odd humor in an otherwise grim World that Never Was. Even if he doesn't mean to be. And this one didn't turn out as crackified as I was afraid it would, so all's good.**  
**

* * *

**iv. Expositions**

All of the Castle is cold, but the basement levels are colder. You can feel the chill in the folds of your clothes as the stairs wind down. The light is dim and stained green—not painful white, like it is upstairs.

Roxas doesn't _like_ having to go down there… or, rather, doesn't think he would, given the choice. The older members snicker and rib him good-naturedly or otherwise about being afraid of the dark and he can't exactly disagree—something in him remembers the difference between darkness and just the absence of light.

Of course that something would rather he leave his gadding about restricted to the upper floors, where the glare hurts his eyes but at least he can see everything.

And of course Necessity dictates otherwise.

The basement levels are colder than the rest of the Castle, and Vexen's laboratory is coldest. Even the hallway outside chills you right down to the bone on a good day. When the good scientist's having bad days, well. Frost coats the walls. Daggers of condensation run off the ceiling; they're frozen all the way through before they reach the floor. And they hang where they are until Number Four says they can break.

On this particular day, Roxas has to pick his way around an unnecessary number of frozen stalagmites, sunk to his ankles in slush. When he sighs, it is born in the air as a tiny white cloud.

_Must be that time of the month._

"Vexen?"

Knock knock. Thump thump, actually, on the heavy steel door.

"Vexen?"

"Intrude."

That must be a yes, because the door opens soon after, with a heavy, dull grind. Roxas slides in through the crack—the inside of the lab is warmed from the chemical fires, but not much, and there are fumes in the air. He wonders if it would be rude to lift one sleeve over his nose.

Vexen sits hunched over a stack of papers several inches high—scribbling, muttering, crumpling the top page and tossing it over one shoulder, scribbling again on a new one. Dark blots multiply on the white paper; Roxas is fairly certain only half of them are words.

"…What are you working on?"

For better or for worse, there is no pretension of serenity around Vexen. Even his movements as he packs papers and pen away—stuffs them into some cubbyhole out of sight—are jerky. Distracted.

"Nothing." Twitching. "Just a… a treatise of sorts." Nervous, and irritable. "What can I do for you, Number Thirteen?"

_Definitely that time of the month._

Roxas objects a little to being called by his number, but he knows better than to argue. "Is this a bad time? I don't want to disturb you, but I have a question that I thought you might know the answers to."

Which happens to be exactly the right thing to say.

"What might that be?"

Number Thirteen coughs another cloud before he continues. "…Why did the Keyblade choose me?"

Which happens to be exactly the content of the "treatise of sorts" sitting in the cubbyhole, out of sight. If Vexen's eyes could light up, surely they would. Surely.

"As a matter of fact…"

For better or for worse, one should not try to comprehend the words Vexen uses. Words like _speculation _and _theory _and _for all intents and purposes… _Roxas nods and appears to listen out of the goodness of his heart—or what might have been goodness, if he had one—but he realizes too late that the answers are not there.

An unnecessary number of minutes later, Number Thirteen—unnoticed—drowses with his head on the desk. Number Four rambles—and rambles, and rambles.


	5. Architect

**A/N: **Poor Lexaeus. So underrated. x.x I think he's secretly a big teddy bear or something like that, but that's just me. Oh well.

Roxy seems to enjoy his company. -shrugs-

* * *

**v. Architect**

"See, Roxas, how heavy rains have worn the grooves deep into this section of wall here…"

Roxas looks up, obediently, though in truth he sees too many grooves in the wall to be able to pick out the particular ones being shown to him—and, at any rate, they're probably too high above his head to properly see, but of course he doesn't make any comment about that. Lexaeus' words, at least, don't fly too far over his head, and that is enough.

"We're going to have to redo some of the whitewash here, but at least there are no big leaks, eh? And, Roxas, this damp—it makes the gaslights sputter too much to be of any real use, and it's not doing very much good for Vexen's papers or Zexion's books, I tell you."

The younger member nods his head and makes the appropriate noises when they're called for, but mostly he listens. While Vexen is something of a scholar and as such quite entitled to speak in enigmas whenever he chooses, Lexaeus is plainspoken. His concerns are almost too ordinary for this world, things like water and lights and the structure of the castle, and how they compare to water and lights and castles of all the other worlds he's ever visited, regardless of whether or not those worlds still exist outside his memory.

Lexaeus reads stories in stones and the branches of trees. Like an architect, Roxas decides. A draftsman. A builder—which is strange, considering that even this world they inhabit is built upon Nothing at all.

"Lexaeus, why is it so dim down here, anyway? I mean, would it really be so hard to light the basements like the rest of the castle? It seems like it'd be a bit more convenient…"

Building Something from Nothing. It's almost a comforting thought.

Of course Roxas occasionally wonders whether or not Lexaeus understands how futile comforting thoughts turn out to be, in the end—Nothing will still be Nothing, when all is said and done—but mostly he can't bring himself to care. In Number Five's company, he finds he can never bring himself to care too much.

If Nobodies are creatures of elaborate self-deception, it just so happens that Lexaeus' can almost be called serenity. Even happiness. And if it _is _self-deception, neither he nor Roxas nor anybody else will ever know the difference, really, so does it matter?

"You'd think that, but you see, the energy it takes to power the upper levels of the castle alone is…"

That may even be why Roxas chooses to listen, because most of the others don't even try to pretend an interest in such trivial pursuits.


	6. Conundrum

**A/N: **Ooohh, it's Zexy. Speaking in riddles. As usual. o.o

* * *

**vi. Conundrum**

"Zexion, why are we here?"

Tall palm trees. Seemingly endless stretches of white sand, falling away pleasantly underfoot.

"…Didn't you want to see this world?"

A warm wind, carrying only the barest traces of sea-salt, and the sound of waves.

"I asked you what it was like. I didn't think you could show it to me."

The ocean, sapphire-blue and shining. A jagged line of white foam where the breakers touch the shore.

"Well, you obviously thought wrong. Don't you remember this place?"

Three, four gulls making long, slow circles overhead, dark v-shapes against the endless blue.

"…I think I might. Everything is so familiar, but I know I've—"

Not a single cloud in the sky.

"Never been here before? Exactly. But your heart remembers. Or, rather, your lack thereof."

A long sigh. A pair of shoes shuffling idly in the sand, for lack of anything better to do.

"Remembers what?"

Silence. Apart from the cries of the gulls, and the murmur of the tide, and the passing of the wind through the trees, silence.

"Home."

The sound of the word, alien in Zexion's mouth and Roxas' ears—the sound of the word falling, being pulled apart by its own strangeness.

"But there's no such thing for us, is there? Not anymore?"

A pair of lips pulling upward in what might be a smile, except something just seems wrong.

"There might have been, once. But you're right—not anymore. Which is why we shouldn't stay."

Sudden distortions—a shift in the air, a wrinkling, like watermarks on a photograph.

"We couldn't have stayed anyway, right? Not for very long?"

A gloomy basement room in a huge castle. Dark green light that comes from nowhere in particular.

"No, I don't suppose we could have. Just long enough for you to see everything. The changing would have given me bad headaches otherwise."

Shelves and shelves and shelves, full of books. Exactly one gap, for the one lying open on the table.

"Why did you show it to me?"

A pair of gloved hands closing the book, lifting it and putting it neatly back on the shelf.

"…No reason. I needed something to do."

Zexion always speaks in riddles.


	7. Lycanthropy

**A/N: **Wow, it's been a pretty busy and inspiration-less couple of months. D: But I finally worked out a plotline for this one, and maybe I can work on the later members with a little more ease now that I have.

Anyway, here. Saïx being a werewolf. o.o

* * *

**vii. Lycanthropy**

Once, in a rare fit of uncharacteristic generosity, Saïx told him a story about wolves. Roxas had never seen a wolf himself, but Saïx had always possessed a facility with words when he chose to use them, and made him imagine well enough what wolves were like.

Saïx told him, with a twisting of the mouth that more closely resembled a grimace of pain than a smile, that the wolves were Night's children, and the Moon was their Mother. That was why their fur, though it could be any color from steel gray to almost-black to white as snow, always shone silver in a certain light, and their eyes were gold.

And Saïx told him that in a distant world the wolves lived and hunted in packs, and that they ran as silently as shadows, and that they offered their kills to Moon-mother, who watched over them from the sky. (_And she was lovely and pale and still, _Roxas remembers Saïx saying, and shivers at the memory, _like a beautiful corpse._)

And Saïx told him that the wolves, too, had songs and stories—but wolf-speak had no words, only a howling that mimicked the sound of the wind in a storm. And the men of that world only understood words; they feared the howling, and claws and teeth and silvery fur and golden eyes that glistened in the dark. So the men of that world took their torches and their weapons into the deep forests. They hunted the wolves.

_But_, Saïx told him, that was only one story—the story written by men.

In another story, in the story he whispered to Roxas with furtive eyes in the depths of the Castle that Never Was, Moon-mother saw the plight of her children. Moon-mother cast her light on the faces of the men of that world as they slept, and those men, too, became wolves when the moon was full…

Saïx smiled at him then, for a moment—though it more closely resembled a grimace of pain than a smile—and walked away, and never again was he seized by such a rare fit of uncharacteristic generosity that it made him tell stories.

But sometimes Roxas sees Saïx standing at the top of the tallest tower in the Castle that Never Was, and under the light of Kingdom Hearts his blue hair seems to shine with an undertone of silver. His eyes are gold.


	8. Words

**A/N: **I swear to God, I'm going to start writing regularly again if it kills me.

Inspired by _358/2 Days_, ish. Hi Axel. c:

* * *

**viii. Words**

In the beginning, he was almost convinced that Axel knew everything. None of the others had much patience for Roxas in those days, newly-born as he was, slow to move and speak and understand. _He'll snap out of it eventually,_ they reasoned, _let's just keep him out of the way until he does, it's always like this when they're new._ Only Axel thought to try speeding the process along—out of boredom, he says now whenever Roxas thinks to ask him why.

In the beginning, he followed Axel around like a lost child (which he was at the time, he supposes, but now it's embarrassing to admit), and learned the names of the things around him. _Castle. City. Chair. Staircase. Sky. Keyblade._ Axel would point at the thing, or touch it, and then he'd say its name and the word would push its way sluggishly into Roxas' mind, a painfully slow swirl of silver fluid. When you've just been born it's hard to remember words, harder still to form them into sounds that you can say, but Roxas always tried, always. He took pictures of the things in his mind, pinned the words to them, told himself in the silence inside his head that he had to remember or he might as well just not exist.

_Axel, _said Axel, pointing to himself. Roxas, as always, took mind-pictures—red spiked hair, wiry limbs, glass-green eyes and a lazy smile and a long finger pointing and a drawling voice enunciating slowly _Axel._

He was almost convinced that Axel knew everything.

It was harder, in the beginning, to learn the names of things that didn't exist in their world. When they'd walked the length and breadth of the cold castle and the silent city and named the things with names, Axel told him stories. Even then, Axel had been to many worlds.

What were _stars? _What was a _sun? _What were _beaches _and _oceans _and _ice cream? _And how could there be any other worlds than the _castle _and the _city _and the dark _sky?_

Roxas pointed to himself. There was something of a question in his eyes, but it was heavy and sluggish and slow to form on his tongue.

_Oh, _said Axel, with a crooked smile, and he too pointed at Roxas' chest, fingertip trained above the space where the heart should have been beating, _stupid of me for forgetting the most important thing of all. Roxas. That's you. That's your name._

Roxas frowned, bent his head down and scratched it a little. It was starting to hurt from holding so many words. What was a _name?_

_Don't frown like that, _said Axel, and his smile widened a little as he patted Roxas' shoulder. _It's okay, no pressure. I'm your friend, Roxas._

A name was what something was called, because everything had to be called something, otherwise people would only be able to say "this" or "that," and that would confuse everyone. But what was a _friend? _Did _Axel _and _friend_ mean the same thing, or could _friend _be a second name for other things too? Wasn't it confusing for something to have more than one name?

_R-Roxas, friend? _he stammered, awkwardly and a little painfully, pointing to himself again. Axel only smiled and smiled.


End file.
